Oil spill

Kinoya Village headman Kaminieli Volau at the oil spill in their village in Nasinu yesterday. Picture: ELIKI NUKUTABU

Villagers of Kinoya in Nasinu have expressed concern over a recent oil spill in the sea beside their village.

Village headman Kaminieli Volau claimed the spill had started two weeks ago.

"This is not the first time such a spill has happened and we fear for the lives of our children as well as our next generation," he said. "If this continues, they might not be able to enjoy and get a chance to eat fresh seafood from our fishing ground in the future. This has been our source of food for many years and we rely on it for our daily living."

Mr Volau said he had witnessed four spills already. He claimed some were major ones while a few were small ones which were easily contained.

However, he said the recent one was so bad that the colours of their fishing boats changed from white to black.

"We believe these mangroves will die soon because this spill has been here for two weeks," he said yesterday.

"The Environment Department had also come in today to see the extent of the spill.

"The spill was really thick early this morning (yesterday), it overflowed again."